The Gift
by Jack Spheniscidae Enterprises
Summary: Prose adaptation of the final issues of the Mike Carey Hellblazer run.
1. Chapter 1

**This is an adaptation of the closing issues of Mike Carey's Hellblazer run as practice for an original Hellblazer fanfic I plan on eventually writing. (I have it scheduled for some time in 2046). This chapter is a summary of most of the major events of his run. **

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><p>They call me the laughing magician. The scouser who'd drift across the world, dealing with the many mysteries of magic after it got into the hands of every enterprising over-eager fool ever shat out of their mummy's cunt. Stepping out of the shadows, adorned in his trusty trenchcoat with a smoking cigarette in hand, a bastard grinning like the devil himself. The one who'd fix whatever mess the wannabe magician who didn't understand a single cent of the cos of day brewed up, no matter what it took. And afterwards, but not before one final smartarsed remark, he'd step back into the shadows until he was needed again.<p>

You could write a fantastic, bloody good serial out of my life if you edited out all the daft and horrifying parts. After all, who wouldn't want to be the con man who undid the Damnation Army and Resurrection Crusaders, got the devil to cure his cancer, played the great Creator Himself, and even shagged a lesbian?

That's the story they tell of me, John Constantine. A real nasty piece of work, just ask around. But that's the problem with stories. All of 'em about folks like me, is that only one half is reality. The other half is all bollocks, cooked up by your own self-propagandizing efforts and the drunken, frightened gossip at the local underworld pub. And the result, ladies and gents? A reputation that outgrows you. Don't get me wrong, a bloated reputation has its benefits. I can walk right into a pub filled to the last seat with the universe's nastiest demons and warlocks, all of them capable of murdering me with a single stare, and have the entirety of damnation parliament collectively darken the rear end of their trousers just by lighting a Silk Cut. But like all things, it has its price. And no matter what they say of me, I'm just a man in the end. The dumb, cocky idiot always leaping headfirst off the diving board into a pool far out of his depth. Ignoring the count of bodies that kept piling up every time he dragged himself back out. Every fucking time.

Vicious, bloody cycle, innit? Ever since I had my first taste of magic and got hooked on it, ever since Newcastle, that's been the story of my life. Having the rug yanked out from underneath me, reinventing the dictionary page for screwin' the pooch, but managing every time – no matter who died or what new part of my soul I had to sell – to claw my out of hell with grin smugger than ever.

Every fucking turn of the merry-go-round.

Never learn, do I? Every step forward is also one backwards. When you're so cocksure that what you're about to do is going to save the world from damnation, completely unaware that you're actually bringing it one step closer to hell. To cut the long story short, I made plenty of mistakes lately. Reckless, stupid leaps of faith. It turned out that what I thought was the big bad wolf, the Shadow Dog, was actually protecting the world from the real beast. And even after I managed to stop him, with a little "help" from me mates, I wasn't in any sort of shape to crawl down to the local pub for about a dozen victory pints. No shape for anything at all, other than to get played myself. Memories of desperate gambles, that tug and threaten to wrench my heart in two when I think about them and everything they cost me.

All of the mistakes I ever made, every price I ever paid to win the bet, every single one came to collect.

I allied myself with the last person I ever thought I would, an old enemy dating all the way back to Newcastle. Nergal. Never goes away, does that sod?

Like so many times before, I blazed my way into hell, to confront the bastard fruits of our own planting. My demon children and his daughter, the ones who were having the ball of the century tearing my life apart. Shuffling my way through the remnants of past betrayals on a long and winding road through the abyss, we reached it. Every other time, this would've been the part where I'd pull out the ace I'd kept hidden in my coat. Laugh as I saw the horror in their eyes as their plans fell apart in the span of a few minutes. And I'd walk off after flipping them all off, my arrogance renewed and ready to begin the cycle all over again.

But not this time. After all, it's what they say. Jokes lose their value, what makes you laugh at 'em, the more their told. So enough of me being able to piss and fuck up all the sods with just me wits and rogue charm. This time, the universe decided to get itself some new material by tossing John Constantine down the shitter further than he had ever fallen, and see how things went while it snorted itself silly on entropy and had one large wank over my misery the whole time.

My demon bastards tore through every single unfortunate soul on this world who mattered to me, or the ones who had the misfortune of knowing me, leaving behind just more ghosts and guilt. Even poor Mange, the bloody rabbit of all unholy souls. One of them was my older sister, Cheryl, after they possessed her husband and had their way with her.

Saving her soul from the depths of hell should've been child's play. But I hadn't counted on the First of the Fallen. You see, I'd grown to underestimate him, even though he was the fucking devil.

I remember being scared of him well enough that night in Killiney. Me, drunk and dying of cancer and desperately trying to think of something as he so eloquently told me of his claim to me mate Brendan's soul. Could I really have bested Satan himself? Turns out on that stormy night in Ireland it was as easy as tricking the conceited bastard into drinking some holy-water-turned-stout courtesy of Brendan's magic before smashing a wine bottle into his face. The sound of him crying and cursing me as he fled back to Hell with his pointed tail between his piss-stained legs was like a sweet symphony. Oh, he was rightfully steamed at me afterwards. And after I scammed him into curing me of me cancer and deprived him of his chance for revenge, he never did give up trying to get at me, whether it was directly or through me mates. But he never did win, no matter how much of a show of bombastic bravado he'd put on and subsequently after playing him for a fool so many times afterwards, it was hard for me to think of him as anything but an overzealous wanker in a fishnet.

How wrong I was. When I saw him go through Rosecarnis, the demoness who'd tricked me into siring her three hellspawn, and two of the demon children themselves like they were paper dolls and nothing else, I was reminded of that sinking feeling I had when I first saw him strolling into Brendan's lighthouse like he owned the whole damn fucking world. You slipped mate, into something far beyond you, without even realizing it. Nergal himself went quickly, and there came the final hour. When my sister's soul hung in the balance. And I cocked it all up. I had bruised the First's precious, fragile ego one too many times. And any chance he got to repay the favor, he'd take it.

I hadn't counted on Tony, the bleeding godbotherer whom she married, offing himself after he realized what he had done. What is it about the religious folk that cause them to forget that suicide is one of the damning things when their wall of Jericho collapses? And so, everything spiraled out of control. I became the pawn on the First's chessboard, all part of his plan to give me a kick in the bollocks just for the dick-hardening feel of doing it. His deal to Cheryl? Go to hell, take part of Tony's punishment from him. That's when my heart froze, and my mind started racing. Thinking about all the things he'd do to her, due to his hatred of me, just because she was a Constantine.

I begged Cheryl not to listen. Begged her over and over, until my throat was dry and my voice was choking. But she loved him too much, even though he killed her. And so with two words, she stabbed me in the heart with a burning knife and twisted it 'till I started falling. Even now, I'm still feel the plummet. And I dare not think where I'll be when I finally land.

Grief quickly turned to anger, as it always seems to do. I wanted to punch the First in the face, improvise a plan to grab the sheets to his orchestra and rip them to shreds right in front of his face and save my sister from an eternity of unimaginable torture. Kick him in the bollocks and run away fast as I could. But this time, there were no words to be had from me. No gambles to be made. All I could do was stammer, cook up unfinished sentences and curses, while he and Maria – the last of my demon children – looked down at me with the most painful leers I'd ever seen.

The last words the First of the Fallen told me before he sent me back up were: "Oh, I love a happy ending." Words that rung in my head for days afterwards, and still do when I let my guard down.

Next thing I knew, there was thunder rocking my head. I was back in Cheryl's flat, where my journey to hell had begun. Directly in front of me was that idiot Tony, his blood expanding in a pool like a flooded sewage drain. He was slumped forward, with something rising in his back like a camel's hump. Next to him, her eyes closed and her hair limp in his blood, was Cheryl. And huddled on the couch together shivering in their cold fear were two of those who'd gotten away from my demon children's wave of mutilation. Cheryl's daughter, my niece Gemma. My girlfriend, Angie Spatchcock.

I looked at Gemma. Didn't say a single word. She'd been born Gemma Masters, but she was a Constantine through and through. She read me easily, well enough to know that I had bungled it. Fucked everything up. The moment I saw the tears welling up, trickling down her cheek, I did what I always did when I fucked things up in the past and things looked their worst.

I ran. Bolted straight out of the flat, down the winding twisted staircase that led to outside. Didn't even bother putting me shoes back on. When I got out, I didn't stop. I continued to run. The cold, dirty pavement was like a million sharp needles stabbing upward into my feet as I ran as far away from Cheryl's flat as I could, a feeling I felt I deserved in its entirety.

My enemies of the week may have been vanquished, the demons who had sought to destroy me burnt blacker than nightsky, but there was no feeling of victory to revel in. My life may have been saved from the horrors, but it was time to suffer the consequences. It's a feeling I'm not a stranger to, but this time, under the acid-like rain of the night of my worst fuck-up as it dampened my clothes, I wasn't sure if I ever could pick up all the pieces that broke when I finally stopped running.


	2. Chapter 2

**Adapted from Hellblazer #213 - The Gift**

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><p>I haven't left Liverpool since the night Cheryl died. I don't know why I haven't left yet. After all, I should be used to this feeling by now. Stewing in my own grief and self-loathing for a good while before fucking off back to London to try and pick up my life once more. Cheryl wasn't even the first of me immediate family to die because the shit that I let myself get sucked into crept its way into their life. I suppose that's the question. Why the hell am I feeling so cloudy, without a single clue of what to do next?<p>

It shouldn't be like this. I'm John Constantine. I don't write the rules of the game, but I know every crafty, dirty way of playing them for my benefit. But I haven't been doing anything close to "playing" the rules lately, have I?

Not like staying here's doing me any favors, either. No sense of closure to be gained. Nothing I can see to grab onto, to try and pull myself out of the pit. There's nothing here for me but ghosts and memories. And the only thing I can do with my mind clouded by despair and hopelessness is take a step back and keep digging.

Liverpool was one of the first places I stopped after I returned to 'ol England after my business in America. Sailed in on a garbage barge I dubbed the "shiteboat" after which I found Cheryl and her husband living out of a shithole called Elster Tower. It was your typical council block. Graffiti-covered ramparts, a lawn of sickly piss-green grass with all manner of half-drunken bottles and crumpled wrappers strewn about, the whole bloody package.

The greeting for my homecoming? Some poor sod dangling by his neck over the lobby with his tongue hanging out. And Cheryl herself wasn't any better of a sight, with all the pills and wine she'd been ingesting.

Liverpool's never been the cheeriest of places, but there was something off about Elster Tower. At the café where I met Angie, her boss had told me in-between orders of toast that the suicide hadn't been the first of nasty business at Elster.

There was a certain evil about Elster Towers, the kind that wasn't natural and with a mere thought about it could cause the hairs on your neck to bristle up, and it seemed to have sprouted up as the epicenter of all the misery in town. In the air, I could smell it. The very scent of living sickness, living pain. And yet strangely, coming from within, a sense of peace and content that was so out of place in that cesspit of misery it was almost sickening.

And worst of all, what got me worried and shivering the most, was that my sister was living there for the long haul.

Turned out, after a little bit of help from Angie – whom I had so desperately tried to blow off in our first meeting – living at the very top of the tower was a mage – a seemingly cordial old lady - who'd been trying to get high off of lives themselves through pieces of flesh taken from murdered whores. She and her addiction had been the conduit to the misery that enveloped my sister's flat, and with her dying words, she lit the fuse that sent me back to London and put everything into motion…

Didn't make a difference though. Cheryl still died in that flat all the same.

Yet, even with the epidemic of junkie wizards long taken care of, nothing seems to have changed. In the air, there's still the same aura of futile sickness and pain that there's always been. The same dank smell of wet bitumen and burning rubber. The same, familiar howling of police sirens at two in the morning. The same junkies and tramps, lying defeated in the gutter, cast aside by a world that could no longer be bothered to pretend to care.

Maybe I'm just so damn worn out by all that's happened I can only see everything in black now, see nothing reflected back at me but the primal, inherent darkness that I've come to know so well.

Whatever it is, I'm walking through town, no real idea of where I'm heading.

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><p>The sky is a sickly hue of teal as gray smog clouds roll in.<p>

Before recent events, I'd gone through Liverpool several times. Family visits during Gemma's childhood and teenage years, business matters, so on. Every time, I tried my best not to look too closely at anything. It was a joke of mine that every time I came back they'd pulled down something and as such pulled down another couple of my memories. But I never did like looking too closely at anything, whether it was a shiny new tower built over the pavement of dead dreams or the decaying shell of yesteryear. Think too hard, remember too much, and it ruins your mood like nothing else.

But now they've gone and pulled down something far more damaging than the loss of a few buildings from the dusty corridors of my childhood memories.

Now I look closely at everything as I walk through a neighborhood I recall vividly from the days before, and with all the damn ghosts and memories misting about, it all comes rushing back to me.

The car garage has seen better days. Weeds have sprouted around it like a moat. Two of the doors are missing from their hinges. Yet the decay of the present is not what I see.

_She'd lingered behind him like a fly buzzing in the ear, nagging him the whole time. They passed the garage. A shiny new two-door lay out in the open, in front of the seal garage doors, empty. _

"_Stop following me, Cheryl." He finally snapped at her when he'd had enough of the sound of her footsteps pitter-pattering behind him in their rhythmic pattern. _

"_I want to play with you." She continued._

"_Well, you can't." He said as nastily as he could, trying to brush his older sister away from him so he could be alone. "I'd look stupid." But she continued to follow him the whole time. _

The Breeze. It was a pub in the neighborhood. Dad didn't frequent it much, because he was too busy getting drunk at home when I wasn't being a total armful for him. The door's been boarded up, along with the windows. Don't look close, and you might glance over the broken windows from all the rocks board passersby must've tossed at it. The signboard is rusted, and in a few months or so I reckon, it'll be paid a visit from Inspector Bulldozer. I don't wonder how much of the Liverpool I remember has turned out like this. But instead…

_They scatter from the angry giant of man, but they're too overcome by the thrill of a heist gone perfectly, the culmination of their treasure hunt, to be filled with fear by his threats. _

"_You bring them bleeding beer mats back here or I'll have your dad on you!" The bartender roars, shaking his fist at them, but he doesn't chase after them even though it would be easy to catch up and reacquire his stolen property from the little mongrels. _

_They only continue to laugh as they run from him, grand quantities of beer mats with slight droplets of alcoholic condensation on them. As they flee in all four directions of the wind, beer mats go flying in the air as they give the bartender the two-fingered salute. _

_John Constantine, having too much of a ball to care anymore about how stupid he must look with his older sister tagging along behind him like that, offers a well-thought, mature rebuttal to the ire of the bartender._

"_You don't know who me dad is, so frig off, you mong!"_

Ah, nothing like the innocence of childhood, eh? After passing The Breeze, I come to a series of buildings. On the left side of the brick wall, at the edge, is writing. Arthur Close, it reads. Arthur Street L9 is what it was when I was a lad. Here I'd use to kick me soccer ball against the wall back and forth, until Cheryl'd come out and tell me that Dad wanted me in for tea.

There's no kids practicing their kicks here anymore. A fat, balding jogger in blue sprints by, not even noticing my presence. An irate mother with her tits already begging to slack, pushing a stroller with the youngest clutching its giant teddy bear and ripping out the stuffing, pulls along her child who's protesting as he waves something in his hands. I don't look closely. I don't see what it is.

"Well just drop it back in the gutter where you found it. Now, Sinead!" She and her screaming offspring stroll by without a single glance at me. I do nothing as they drift by, living in worlds other than mine that I dare not traipse into.

My moment of contemplation and remembrance is rudely shattered by the sound of Angie Spatchcock's voice in my ear.

"Twenty minutes."

Surprised, I wheel my head around to look at her. "Eh, what is?"

"Twenty minutes you were stood there, looking at a brick wall."

I avoid looking her directly in the eye and tell her like it is. "Look, I'm not in the mood, Angie. Phone's off the hook, all right?"

"Phones don't have hooks anymore. That's a dead metaphor. Smoke?" Ah, just like when we first met. A trade of jests, except back then it was foolery I was willing to engage in. She offers me with her left hand a Silk Cut.

"No thanks." Now you really have an idea of the extent to how pissed, how miserable I am.

"Well, look away then, 'cause I'm having one." She lights the Silk Cut without saying a single word, and as she tosses her head back and blows out smoke, her obsidian-black flows in a wavelike fashion. Then, as I'm dreading it the most, she brings up Gemma.

"She needs you, John. Leave yourself out of it for a sec. She needs you."

"No, she doesn't." My thoughts drift briefly to my niece. From the second she learned what her Uncle John did for a living, she'd wanted to be just like him. I tried me best to dissuade her from it, but it was no use. She'd even started running around calling herself a Constantine after she finally began delving into the magician business even though the name on her birth certificate was Masters. Why would she need me? Everyone knows what happens when I try to help. Saw it herself, through her tear-stained eyes.

I turn from Angie, trying to walk away. Even with my back turned, she continues on her harangue. Her voice is rising.

"She's got to deal with the filth because they want autopsies and they're holding up the funerals. The council wants her out of the flat because she's not even on their books anymore. And you can't even gob out the window without hitting a journo, or a sleazy souvenir hunter, or a battered women's support group doing a vigil. And you-"

She points an accusatory finger at me. I stop walking, and I speak up again.

"I'm thinking. I came away to think."

"Fuck! About what?"

I recognize the house we're standing in front of. Like the rest of my stroll down memory lane, it's gone to shit now. I point at it. "Look. You see this house? This is where Kenny Nelson lived."

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><p><em>The chase began immediately after school. <em>

_He sprints across the field, leaping over garbage and overturned tires. Run, rabbit, run. He's going fast as his legs can carry him. Yet relentless they continued to pursue him. The boy makes a quick sharp into the alleyway, hoping he can shake them off there. _

_But he only has time to let off a heavy grunt of choking air passing through his lungs as the trip takes him by surprise and he goes falling forward. Before he can recover, to crawl to his feet and sprint off, he's being lifted. Gazing into the taciturn eyes of his hunter, the grinning leers of his hyena-like mates all in their school uniforms chattering behind him. And in the picture as well, like a wayward element thrown in from the wrong art exhibition, is a girl shorter than the schoolboy gang. Timid blonde, with one eye covered by a black eyepatch. _

_Kenny Nelson was two years older and two yards taller than John Constantine. Everyone around school thought that he wasn't right in the head, even those in his gang, although none had the sheer stupidity and bollocks to say it to his face. Some said it was his mum's death, from TP when he was age seven, that had turned him funny. But there was nothing funny about what was about to happen for John. _

"_I told you, Constantine. I want two bob a day off you." _

"_I haven't got two bob."_

"_Then you have to nick it, won't yer? Otherwise…"_

_Kenny took out the knife. Made it for himself at metalwork in school. It was a crude invention, just a bit of filed steel and tape at one end, but it was still thin and sharp as a scalpel. And John knew that it was no bluff. All he had to do was take one fearful glance at Kenny's kid sister. Anita Nelson, whose fucking eye he'd put out with a knitting needle when he was only five. _

"_Two bob, soft shite. Only now you've missed a day, so tomorrow it's four. You'd better bleeding get it or I'll kick your face in." _

_With that he shoved John back down, leaving the boy to lick his own wounds and brew in the simmering pot of fear about to boil. _

"_You wanna go down to the reservoir, Ken?"_

"_Nah, let's go to Yozza's and look at his dirty books." Prompting a wave of cheers from his leeches._

_The sole voice of protest was Anita's. It was admirable of her, trying to take a stand like that, even though they all knew it was about as effective as lobbing rocks at a hornet's nest. _

"_I don't want to! I'll tell on you, Kenny!"_

_He laughed like the villain of a Hammer horror film. "Try it, you little rat."_

_And with that they were off, leaving behind just John Constantine who slumped against the wall of the alley. Sad, fearful, angry, miserable. _

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><p><em>Cheryl was the only person he'd trusted enough to tell about the bully, how Kenny Nelson was extorting him for money. <em>

_She screeched at him like a mini harpy. "You should tell Dad." _

_John remained on the couch, both his feet on the cushion. His eyes were on the screen of the TV, but what was airing was not registered. The words emanating from the speakers passed by, an indiscriminate blur.  
><em>

"_Oh yeah! And what's he gonna say? 'Stand on your own feet, stand on your own feet.' Leave me alone, Beryl the Peril." _

_Cheryl muttered a curse at him, and skulked off. When he was sure that she was out of the room, and not around to nag in his ear anymore, John silently slid off of the couch. Crept towards the open door to the kitchen, where his father – Thomas Constantine whose life's misery he so often pinned on John and in fact had begged for a pillow to be put over his head when he saw the newborn for the first time – was soundlessly and despondently stewing a pot. _

_His jacket was hanging on the door. John was about to reach into the loaded pocket and resolve his problems with Kenny Nelson, at least until the day after tomorrow, when his dad spoke up with a low voice that chilled the blood of John like a sharp gust over a frozen lake at winter. _

"_There's two pound seventeen and six in that pocket. And ten Woodbines in the other. By God, they'd better still be there when I put that jacket on." And caught like the little rat he was, John imagined his father grinning at the small victory as he withdrew his empty hand. _

_God helps those who helps themselves. He's another bastard._

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><p>"John, why are you dredging all this stuff up now? What's it got to do with anything?" Angie's voice is worried instead of pissed. I wonder what she'd be thinking if I had told her about the ritual with the cat, instead of that experience from earlier in my life.<p>

I confess. "I started thinking about her. And it brought back a lot of other stuff. I'm talking about my first time. Well, more or less. I mean, I'd mucked about with stuff before, but I'd never done it for real. Never had anything riding on it."

Smoke continues to drift from her cigarette. I look at where we are. The miserable little post office that's here now wasn't here when I was child. And I continue to pull back the layers, revealing a little more and more.

"Look. There was a factory here. The metal box company. The Tinny, we called it. My dad worked there for a few months before he got on at the docks. But it died in the mid-Sixties, like everything else did round here. BOC. Jacob's Biscuits. Mother's Pride. Austerity days. You've never had it so bad."

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><p><em>Unable to find four bob by the next day, John ran before they could come looking for him immediately after school ended. He fled for the Tinny. He had hoped that the factory, with its shadows and large machines, would be his sanctuary. Maybe he could even hide there forever, until Kenny Nelson found someone new to extort. <em>

_But when he couldn't find John Constantine, Kenny Nelson had tracked down Cheryl Constantine like a bloodhound. She grassed on her little brother, although he couldn't blame her. After all, who wasn't scared of Kenny Nelson? She was even frightened of the brute than John was. _

_Two of Kenny's mates grabbed John and beat on him when he tried to scamper for it. Kenny didn't do any of the punching, although his lips were curling upwards in relish. And watching it, unable to intervene even though it horrified her, Anita hung by her brother's side. _

"_You got four bob on the tally, Constantine. You gonna settle up or what?"_

"_I haven't got no four bob."_

"_You got any ciggies?"_

"_No." John said as Kenny's thugs took his arms and held them wide open. Kenny approached, and took out his knife._

"_Oh dear. Oh dear." He grabbed Constantine by his hair._

"_Ow! Ow! Don't cut me, Kenny!" That only made him pull harder._

"_I'll give you something better. Aaaaa! Miles better!" _

_And suddenly, he relieved the tension. Kenny Nelson's eyes were lighting up as the shadows of the factory obscured half of his face. _

"_Go on, then. Let's hear it. Giz a laugh." _

_What John then said none of them could've predicted. "I can do a… a séance, kind of thing. I learned it from me Auntie Jean. I can talk to ghosts and that."_

_Kenny and his boys all laughed at that. He got ready to do the little punk in as he took a step back and his mates tightened their hold on John. "You're away with the bloody mixers. There's no such friggin' thing as ghost."_

_John stammered. "No, it's true."_

"_Bollocks."_

"_I'll show you!" John promised. His mouth opened wide, curving downwards like the fetus in utero. "I've talked to me Mam, Kenny. You can talk to yours."_

_Hearing this, Kenny's face darkened. His cheeks tightened, his eyes widened. And he punched John. The sound of hardened knuckles hitting soft flesh rang out, and with a thud, John hit the floor._

"_D'you think I'm mental?" Kenny yelled at John._

_John cried. "Let me show you! Just let me show you! See if it works!"_

_His mates were chortling, offering their own suggestions to the shot-caller._

"_Let's take him up on the roof and tie him to the flagpole, eh?"_

"_You're dead, Constantine. We're gonna do you."_

"_Come on, Ken. Let's give 'im a-"_

"_Shut up." Kenny growled like a primal beast in the jungle, instinctively establishing its total control over its domain._

"_You're a liar." He pointed at John. J'accuse, young liar. _

"_I'm not, Kenny. I'll show you."_

"_Yeah, you do that. You show me, or I'll twat you."_

"_Okay, close them shutters then. They don't like the light. They won't come unless it's dark."_

"_This is fucking soft." One of Kenny's mates grumbled._

"_Nah, it's a laugh." Another one retorted. "Constantine's fucking bricking himself, la. Ken's just having a laugh with him. And then we'll batter him."_

_John Constantine took from his pockets a piece of chalk and began to draw a circle on the factory floor. when they had closed the shutters. _

"_This is the circle. This is the mark." He did his best to make it sound like he knew what he was doing. Because he knew what awaited him otherwise if he slipped up was the kicking of his life. And worse._

"_What was your mam called, Kenny?"_

"_Eh?"_

"_What was her name? Before she married your dad, like?" _

"_Liz. Lizzie Seddon." _

_He wrote outside of the edges of the circle the letters ABC. "Okay, then. Sit down around the edges of the circle. Don't touch it or cross it. Don't even gob over the line, or it won't work."_

_At the other end of the circle, he wrote the word YES. And he continued to give orders, doing his best to control the situation which would easily ebb and escalate beyond his control if he didn't do everything to the best he could. "When I'm in the trance, you all call her name, all right? Call her down. I-I don't know how long it'll take so just keep on at it, until she comes."_

_John turned to look at them, his eyes concealed by murky darks in the dim factory. _

"_Ask you any questions you like. She won't – I don't think she'll be able to talk to you. But she'll answer by pointing to the letters." _

_John sat crossed legged in the circle, with the others before him. Kenny, Anita, and the boys all cross-legged before the edge of the chalkdust. And John closed his eyes. _

"_This is spazzey." One of them said. _

"_I said shut up." Kenny snarled at him. "Let him have a go. Get on with it, Constantine."_

_And John started the chain reaction. Two words. Four syllables that echoed in the dark. _

"_Lizzie."_

"_Seldon." _

_And it began, with each of them saying her name in succession. And John's head began to cock and his voice trickled out. _

"_Lizzie. Come Lizzie. Come down Lizzie. Lizzie." _

_His head jerked to the left, his mouth hung open like his jaw was about to detach. An air of nervousness crept in through the cracks. Kenny's goons had lost their boasting, and now they were silent, their uneasy eyes locked on the silent John. _

_Anita's one eye widened as John held up his hand, curled up. _

_And breaking the stillness was Kenny's voice._

_It wasn't right, his mates all inaudibly thought, to hear his voice so scared like that. What had happened to the hard-hitting king who'd led them through romps as the unchallenged terrorizers of the school yard? And no one said as Constantine's fingers uncurled and his hand drifted down. The fingers pointed at the word yes as they touched the ground. _

_Anita was the first to speak, a strident squawk of skeptical doubt. "Well if you're our mam, then what was our dog called, when we lived in-"_

_Kenny shut her up by slapping her across the cheek with a backhand, knocking her astray. For a few unbearable, tense moments, the stillness resumed. But then John began to make a noise. Unnatural, like something dredged from the deepest circle of hell itself._

"_Hnnnnn…" Then drool that looked as black as the night itself in the shadowy illumination began to trickle in a forked ripple down his lip. His head cocked to the other side. And his mouth hung open, and he began to moan. He then jerked forward, his head rolling onto his cheek as he continued to groan. _

"_Shit!" Kenny managed to collect himself enough to say. "He's having' a friggin' fit!" _

_Cries of disgust echoed from his mates. _

_Then John Constantine began to croak guttural syllables forming words from the deepest nadirs of his throat. But it wasn't John's voice that Kenny Nelson started to hear in his head as John's words began to form sentences, as he spoke in slow, unnatural and erratic intervals. _

"_Bunny—boy." _

_His eyes opened and he looked at Kenny directly. _

"_My—sweet—bunny—boy—" And any doubts that Kenny had about the authenticity of John's séance went burning up like sensitive papers on a Communist bonfire in that very moment. His mouth curved downwards, forming an uneasy frown. _

"_M-mam? Mam?"_

_Its limbs rigid, its legs dysfunctional, whatever had overtaken John tried to jerk forward towards Kenny Nelson. _

"_The—line—bunny boy. I can't –cross—the line. I can't—touch you." _

_It managed to rise up onto its knees, and its head tilted towards Anita. It lifted its hand, twisting its fingers into a claw. _

"_And there's—my Nita. My naughty—girl—so big—so grown up. Give me—a hug—Nita. Give your—mummy—a hug."_

_It continued to address Anita as it crept forward slightly on its knees and put both of its hands at the edge of the circle as its head hung downcast. _

"_It would be—so easy—for you—You could—wipe the chalk way—with your sleeve—and then—"_

"_Never fucking mind her. Look at me. Look at me!" Kenny begged, the desperation and remorse in his voice more than evident as he staggered up and shoved Anita to the side once more. "I really miss you, Mam. I really – I love you more than she does. Miles more." _

_Kenny started to walk towards the thing in the circle._

"_Oh Bunny… oh Bunny… you shouldn't…" The voice invited Kenny closer, beckoning towards him like a lamp burning in the dark to the stray moth. _

_Kenny reached for her, his arm extending past the boundary of the chalkdust circle, to touch it. But before he could anticipate anything, it moved and grabbed his arm. And it clutched onto Kenny with strength that was beyond that of its mere child vessel. Kenny could already in his mind the deep purple bruises, the circular helix that would be on his arm when he pulled back his sleeve. And it spoke again, but not in a voice of love. Words that should've been one of love turned to hatred, but the voice was completely calm. And it made it all the more unnerving. _

"_You shouldn't have done it, Bunny, the cushion in my face. It was cruel." _

"_Gah!" Kenny screamed as he twisted and jerked his body, his legs frantically kicking back, trying to escape its ice-cold grip. "N-no! I didn't! I DIDN'T!" _

_It pulled Kenny towards him, its voice as tranquil as ever. _

"_I know the gurgle in my throat scared you. I just know you wanted to stop the sound. But I couldn't breathe, Bunny. I couldn't breathe."_

_Kenny continued to squirm, but it drew him to it ever closer and closer with each fleeting tick of the clock. _

"_There. There. The breath catching. Catching. Can't let it out. And my chest swelling. Bursting." _

_And it began to embrace Kenny, its arm wrapping around his head, stroking his hair gently. Kenny's eyes were like saucers with perfectly aligned stains as they grew, hearing what it was softly whispering to him._

"_Give me your breath, Bunny. It's only fair."_

"_N-no! NO!"_

"_Give me some of yours." _

_Mortified, his mates saw Kenny scream louder than anything they'd ever heard before as he managed to free his leg and kick off the thing that had possessed Constantine. He was crying for it to get away from him as he scrambled up and bolted away. It did not cross the circle to chase after its brood, but it continued to call for him as it began to jerk around inside the circle like a spastic marionette. _

"_Bunny—Bunny—boy—" _

* * *

><p><em>His breath gone, he felt searing and odious bile pushing up in his throat and threatening to burst into the parched cavity that was his mouth, threatening to choke him. His legs screamed at him to stop running, to catch his breath, as he burst out of the Tinny. But Kenny ignored all of the signals his body was sending him. All that mattered to him was getting away from this place, away from that thing, to a place where it couldn't find him. Where no one could find him. <em>

_His eyes were lodged inflexibly headfirst, unaware of the world around him that spanned three-hundred-sixty degrees of dimension. And so he did not bother to check what was coming down the road towards him before he began to dart across it. And as the truck loomed upon him, Kenny Nelson ran forward too fast, too suddenly. The driver, his mouth beginning to crack open in horror, began to plant his foot down on the brakes but it was too late._

_There was a crunch, the skidding of tires, and the sound of bones breaking into slivers. And then the screaming began._

_Two of Kenny's mates, the only ones who hadn't finished pissing themselves and run off in abandonment of their monarch, apprehensively trailed behind Anita Nelson as she walked to the edge of the grass. On the road, there were skid marks sprawling beyond the fractured, earsplitting mess that no longer resembled anything human. _

_The driver stumbled towards what was Kenny Nelson in shock, too shocked to do anything that stagger limply forward and mumble incoherent apologies. His mates were horrified, but Anita was a different case. As she looked upon the agony her brother, the one who'd put out her eye, was in – her lips moved into a small smile. _

* * *

><p>I finish telling her the story of I got Kenny Nelson to invent the game of Frogger years before its conception. Angie's just staring at me, and it's hard for even me to discern how she's taking everything I just told her.<p>

She breaks the silence, or put more accurately, her fag does it. "Ow! Sod it!" She cries while dropping it, a faint trace of smoke still trickling out of it as it falls to the dirty ground. She doesn't bother rubbing it out and she puts her burnt finger into her mouth, sucking on it.

"Let it burn down and blistered my finger. So that was the first time you messed with magic? I would have thought it was earlier than that."

I don't sigh. It's natural of her to assume that, given who I am. "Not magic, Angie."

"But you said..."

"I never mentioned magic. But that was the first time, yeah. When I knew. That's when I knew I had a gift. And exactly what it was."

She doesn't ask what it is, so I go on ahead and tell her what became of the Nelsons after the truck barreled down on Kenny the day he fled for his life from what he thought was the spirit of his mother.

"Kenny didn't die, but his legs were crushed. They had to amputate. They brought him down the street in a wheelchair, three months later. He had these bad N.H.S. prosthetics that were a bit too small for him. So he was looking like a stilt-walker who was playing it really safe. And at first he tried to go back to business as usual, but he learned fast. In the ecosystem of Arthur Street, he'd gone in one giant step to top carnivore to used food."

Angie just follows me as I continue to walk down the street, not sure where I'm going.

"I saw less and less of him after that. Just a face in the window sometimes, watching us play. But Anita blossomed that summer. Turned into a different person. Three comics, six Hot Wheels cars, a Mars Bar and a box of Airfix paratroopers. That was her price. And I paid up, like a good boy. Because she was as mad as her brother, in her way. And there was no way that half-arsed séance routine would have worked without that inside info she gave me. It's the details that do it, every time."

We're now standing in an empty, dying and littered field. Behind us there's a large wall and the crumbled remains of tainted buildings. Cracks are running through it, slicing through the obscene graffiti.

"Fuck. Okay. Nasty story. What's the moral?"

"You tell me."

"Sorry. I can't be arsed."

And I like I've anticipated, she brings it up. Trying to convince that I can still help Gemma, the one I failed, my last remaining blood on this Earth.

"You went to hell for her, John. But you failed. It happens. Then you get up and carry on. You and Gemma can help each other through this."

"No, we couldn't. Didn't you listen to a bloody word? My talent's for lying. For sticking the knife in when people least expect it. Then walk away with a smile and a wave before they realize they're bleeding. She was – a pain in the arse, as a sister. Most of the time I tried to get out of being seen with her. I'm done with it. I'm at the end of my rope."

Any compassion in her voice is gone. It's the typical Constantine love story making its way full circle. Repulsion. Irritation. The whole package, now that's she truly seen what a right, selfish bleeding bastard I am. She's frowning, her eyes are black, as I walk away from her.

"All right, John. Have it your way. Wallow in self-pity until you're ready to stick out your head out again. I'll still be here."

But you won't, will you? I've been down this path many times before. So many love songs, so many lost loves. Emma. Zed. Marj. Kit. Dani. Isabel. And I could go on naming them all, and to the letter I could tell you how I lost them.

Angie may not know it, but I've been down this road before. Might as well tell her that it's over, but I don't. And at this point in me life, what's the point anymore in trying to change things? The best I can hope for is that we can depart on more amicable note when it does end. No murders, no betrayals, no love turned into hatred… but why should I expect any better?

She's still talking. "But take it easy, yeah? Don't go making any big decisions while you're in this mood. You'll just make it worse."

Too late, love. Too fucking late, love. I silently say to myself as I continue to walk through Liverpool. The sky is reddening, and soon it'll be the black of night. Somewhere above me machinery grinds and a wrecking ball knocks down a condemned building. I drift by it as it all goes falling down, the debris dropping around me in droves. I continue to walk. At last I'm all alone, left in the company of no one.

No one but ghosts and memories.


	3. Chapter 3

**Adapted from Hellblazer issue 214 - "R.S.V.P. Part One"**

* * *

><p>Left Angie and Gemma in Liverpool. Didn't bother staying in town for Cheryl's burial, and especially not Tony's. Boarded the train from Lime Street to King's Cross early in the morning without a single word good-bye. After they realized my sudden abandonment, what did they think? Do they hate me? Pity me? I don't know, and quite frankly, I don't fucking care anymore. All I know for certain is already I'm back to playing all me old games.<p>

On the train I didn't think much. When the cart came around, I ordered a beer and lit a fag and then just watched the scenery speeding past outside, from rotting cities to smoke-spewing industrial stacks to the poisoned countryside.

Sometime during the ride, I fell asleep. And drifting away, completely unprotected, I started to dream.

Someone who's involved himself as deeply into the magic scene as I have is bound to meet his share of odd folks. One of them was the King of Dreams himself. I had been a stepping stone in his own business to reclaim the Dreaming, but the broody bastard'd been gracious enough to grant me a favor. He'd taken away my nightmares of Newcastle, but as I now learn a little over twenty years after that encounter, taking away just Newcastle wasn't enough.

As I wake up to the sound of the train screeching to a halt, dank nicotine breath-stains on the window, I futilely look at my sad reflection in the mirror and think that I should've just asked 'ol Mr. Sandman to take away me dreams altogether.

My throat's itching as I step out of the train. Instinctively I reach into my coat pocket, but I pull out nothing. Then I remember that I used up all my Silk Cuts by the time the train passed Stafford.

As I join the crowd and pass through security without a single hitch, I find myself wondering why I've come back to London.

I mean, what is this?

What exactly are we dealing with here? Some sort of homing instinct, like with pigeons and spawning salmon? Or just a pattern of behavior so deeply ingrained it's impossible to break? How many times has it been? What is it about London, after all the misery that's happened to me here and the absence of a clear future promised by its grey, bleak skyline that brings me crawling back here every bloody time?

I mean, there's a whole fucking world of possibilities out there. I've never broken the bank at Monte Carlo, or danced live on Broadway, or herded yak in Nepal. I may have been a wee bit strapped on quid when I left Liverpool, but I'm resourceful. A clever bastard, even in the face of hopelessness. I could've easily swindled myself enough playing bloody bingo to afford a flight to anywhere, someplace far enough from all my losses and my surviving ties, finally a place where I could totally start anew.

But here I am again, in 'ol London town. Hitting the reset button. Reverting to type.

Back in the bloody smoke.

* * *

><p>I'm at a pub called The Angel. I ask the bartender for a pint of old brewery and a whiskey chaser. He asks me if I want the red label or what else. I tell him it doesn't matter. I'm not a fussy lad, just hit me up with whatever you've got.<p>

With a Silk Cut held between my fingers as my hand clutches the bottle, I think about how when I exited King's Cross, there were no marching bands awaiting my return. No big parade. Because everyone who ever met me is dead, more or less. Some of them died over the years, while others were added en masse via my demon bastard's wave of mutilation. _Frank. Anne-Marie. Gary Lester. Rick the Vic. Header. Straff. Helen. Judith. Alba. _

_God._ I realize, and I have to close my eyes and place my hand over my face. _Cheryl._ But I don't have much time for isolation, to eat away at myself with more of the good 'ol self-loathing. Suddenly, there's a real edge to the air. Like somebody just walked over my grave.

When I look up, I see three men chatting at a table, not touching their glasses of lager as they discuss the results of a game of football I didn't watch. No, it's not them that's got me feeling jittery. It's what's walking right through them that is. Sometimes, I envy normal blokes like them, who don't know the things I know and don't have to see what I see.

Bloody, decaying zombies. Three of 'em. No doubt someone had something up their mind they wished to relay once they got word I was back in town. _I suppose that's what you get, Johnny-boy, for never making an e-mail._ I think as I take a swig from the bottle as they shamble up to me. I give one of them the look, letting them know I'm not too pleased that my drink's being interrupted.

"John—Const—ant—tine?" The one I'm looking directly in the decomposing eyeballs manages to moan.

"That's right, squire. How's the diet going?" I ask, tossing them a bit of improvised wit, even though I know it sails right over the undead heads of basic, primitive messenger boys like these.

"This—is—for—you." Hands me an orange envelope. I open it, and there's a piece of tan paper inside. I see who sent it. Huh. Should've seen this coming. Should've known these dead boys were from their side of magic town.

_You are cordially invited to a celebration to mark the 200__th__ anniversary of the founding of the Tate Club. _

_Soho Square, London W1 2KN_

_21__st__ December 7.30 PM_

_Black tie. _

_R.S.V.P. _

Suddenly I don't feel so thirsty anymore. I set my bottle down, leaving the envelope and its contents lain out at the bar and I head to the door. The zombies don't do a thing to stop me. They just remain at the bar, their eyes watching me until the shutting door cuts me off from their line of sight.

* * *

><p>I decide to seek out Chas Chandler. He, after all, was one of the first mates I made after I took my first steps into London. And like Gemma and Angie, he and his family –Renee, Geraldine, Trisha - were the lucky ones who managed to survive the recent events. Or depending on how you look at things, the unlucky ones.<p>

I haven't seen Chas since he got possessed by Nergal and walked out of Cheryl's flat before my trip to hell. For once, I decide not to pop in unannounced and decide to go contact him ahead of time.

Four o'clock, and it's already getting dark. Solstice is only a few days away. The time for winter magic, where we kill and eat the sun to give us strength to make it through the cold. Only it feels like it's already dead.

I call Chas on a box from Charing Cross Road. There's no answer. Nothing's ever bloody easy, is it? As I set the phone back, I hear an unfamiliar voice. I'm in no mood to flee or fight, so I just turn to see who it is. He's younger than I expected, in a black jacket, with a haircut like Robert Smith.

"Didn't you read the invitation, Mister Constantine? It's R.S.V.P. But in your case I think I can waive the rules and take a verbal answer." He reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and pulls out a white card. "The name's Etheridge. I'm on the Tate's events committee. And I'm a big fan. Actually, I was hoping you'd be one of our speakers."

"So that was you, wasn't it? The walking dead dropping off the mail?"

He beams when he hears that. Typical of someone from the Tate crowd. It's all a game for them, a mystical dick-measuring contest. They don't know, or don't care, that it's playing with fire and the only one who'll get burned is them.

"Yes. It's a fiddly one to do, because of course, they're only illusions, while the invitation is a solid object. It took ages to get that right."

I put another cigarette in my mouth and hold the invitation he hands me in my hands. "Well, I'm just lost for words, mate. Overwhelmed, that's the only word for it."

His eyes are like a sycophantic, fawning puppy dog's. His mouth is grinning, and I can sense his dick hardening in anticipation of what he thinks I'm about to say. So the Mr. Committee here thinks I'm about to accept their invitation? Well, as I told Angie, I do put my gift to good use. And now it's time to stick the knife in.

"I mean, two hundred generations of bearded old geezers have used magic as a tool for unlocking the mysteries of creation. Breaching the walls of life and death. Stuff like that." And in front of his eyes, now like the Titanic right before it hit the iceberg, I tear his invitation in half right in front of him and crumple it up. "But fuck them if they can't take a joke, right? It's time we all put our glad rags on and had a good knees-up."

Etheridge can only look on in horror as I pry open his hands and press the remains of his invitation in 'em.

"A verbal answer? I'd rather have my guts drawn out with hooks than waste an evening with a shower of chinless fuckwits like you. How's that?"

I see how hard he's trying to hold back the tears, and I almost smile.

"That's… I'm… I find that really disappointing, John."

Why do you still bother wasting those breaths, mate? You ain't on me mind no more. Don't care about anything you can stammer my way. I then see my exit from this pratt coming down the street and I wave it down.

"Taxi!"

"You've inspired a generation of us. We look up to you." He continues to stutter. Very bad news to all little girls in nightclubs and everyone you've ever considered a mate, then.

The driver rolls down his windows. Male of African descent, dreadlocked. There's the not-too-subtle scent of marijuana permeated in his cab, which means that he probably won't mind me having a few fags on the way to Chas'.

"D'you go south of the river?" I ask him.

He smiles. "Mate, I'm from Brixton. I go anywhere."

All the time, even after I get in and the driver puts his foot down, Etheridge is still talking.

"Well think about it then. And let me know when… when you've…" Kicking up dust in the street, the cab was off. "Shit."

* * *

><p>Chas hadn't been living in the most pleasant of conditions when I had met him. To sum things up, Mr. Chandler was still living with his hippopotamus of a mother and her bleeding pet monkey. Yeah, you didn't mishear me on that one.<p>

Anyways, without givin' too much away, I took care of both Mummy and monkey. And like that, Chas was free. For that, he's always had a feeling of debt to me. And like the bastard I am, every little chance I got, I made sure to abuse that feeling. Our relationship's had its ups and downs, but Chas always comes crawling back to me in the end. And with him, his free rides and his use in whatever half-cocked plan I cooked up. For someone like me who never bothered to learn to drive, Chas was a godsend who always delivered.

But I haven't seen him since Cheryl died, and as such, no free rides in London. It's an unpleasant experience, actually paying for a taxi ride. And when we get to Chas' gaff, the place is dark. No one home. It's annoying, because I'm actually worried about the old tosspot. The last time I saw him, a demon from hell had been using him as a finger puppet. Nergal didn't seem to agree with him much. And like I've said, he's the only friend I've got left. He's an endangered bloody species.

And then the big light bulb goes on. Chas has got a cousin, Norma. I bunked up on her floor once, during the Family Man business. She should know if it's all wells chez Chandler. Assuming she's still living in the same place.

I get back in the taxi. "Streatham. Longwall Street."

"Already there, Chief. Someone done a runner on you, have they?" The driver comments.

"Don't get me started."

As he drives, I then notice what's hanging from his window. An upside-down crucifix with a nail and feather. I decide to start up a convo to pass the time.

"Woolworth's all out of fluffy dice, were they?"

"What?" Then the driver chuckles. "Oh, me danglies, you mean. Don't knock it, mate. That's insurance, that is. Like the AA. The crucifix was my dad's. 'cos he's watching me from heaven sort of thing. And the nail and the feather are for Maître Carrefour. My mum showed me how to make that."

"Fuck me." I take notice of his information posted on the back of his seat. "You like to hedge your bets, don't you – Robert?"

"It's Roberrrr, Chief. No 'T'. My mum was born in Haiti, innit? They do the old parley voo down there. It's all about belief, yeah? Doesn't matter what you believe in, but the instinct's there. You don't believe in nothing except yourself, you're not human."

I could tell him that it's the Boneyard Baron who comes to a crow feather, not Master Care-for. And that the crucifix being upside down will get Samedi's juices flowing and proper. But I'm not in the mood right now. No one's paying me to save the world from its fucking self.

"You need to start asking yourself the big questions, chief. Like, what am I doing here? What happens after I'm dead?" He tells me as I pay him after I get off. I know the answers to both of those already, chief, and trust me – you're better off not knowing.

* * *

><p>At Norma's flat, I press the bell and nothing happens. Except that an old biddy across the way comes out to watch, alerted by her old biddy radar. I realize this is a mug's game and I'm about to give up on it when Norma opens the door, a bit plumper than I remember, less than pleased to have visitors at this hour.<p>

"All right, I heard you the first time-" And she's even less pleased to see just who's visiting. I guess the dirty little geezer in me can forget about some pity sex afterwards, eh? "Bloody hell, it's you."

"Hello, Norma. I'm sorry if this is a bad time. I wondered if you'd seen Chas lately. I got him into some trouble, and I haven't the chance to talk to him since."

"Some trouble?" She hisses, pointing an accusatory finger at me.

"Yeah, it's a long story, but-"

"I know the frigging story. But he's not here. So piss off."

But then, from behind her inside, silhouetted, Chas comes out.

"Norma, you can let him in."

Reluctantly, she obliges. "Right. Don't mind me. I only live here."

"Chas!" I try to make my voice all big and friendly, as if Nergal's little joyride in his body and my botched journey in hell never happened. "Good to see you, mate."

He sighs, and he doesn't smile. He instantly assumes that I've come to bum another ride, or have him do me a favor. "Is it, John? Why's that, then? The cab's still out of action, and I'm totally boracic. So you've probably had a wasted journey."

"You've got me dead wrong, Chas. This is a house call. I know what it's like, having that sly bastard digging about in your head. He did it to me, too. And then seeing your house all locked up and empty… well, I'm relieved you're okay. That's all."

His brow furrows. He raises his hand.

"Who in the name of fuck said I was okay?"

"Well, I mean…" But he cuts me off.

"You don't have a bastard clue what you mean. So shut it, okay?"

Pain pervades through every inch of his face. Bloody hell, just what did Nergal do to him? And then he drops on me the great flood.

"My own wife's left me. My own kid won't talk to me. I haven't slept in a week and a half. I'm not okay, John. Not in the fucking slightest."

"Christ. Renee's left you. Why?"

Norma interrupts, her opinion a condemning hiss. "Because of you, he had a breakdown."

"It wasn't a breakdown." Chas says. He looks down as his hands, like he's just murdered someone. It's a feeling I've known as well, the sudden realization that there's blood on you, but I don't tell him that. "I hit her. Gave her a real hitting. Out of nowhere, it just…"

He continues. "All of this shit just popping out in my mind. All these thoughts."

"Christ! But that's what Nergal does to you, Chas. You didn't know what you were doing."

"Oh, I knew alright. I enjoyed it." He's almost grinning as he says it, as if the dam he's built to hold back his insanity is about to crack.

"Yeah, but it was him. Not you. It wasn't your-"

"Don't talk crap, okay?" Chas curls his hand into a fist. "My hands, John. My knee in her stomach. My boot in her face. Nobody else's. Mine. She hates me. And she's got every fucking right to." And he starts crying with that, covering up his face.

_And there's that sinking feeling, Constantine. _Christ, I've gotten Chas into some steamy shit before. But nothing like this. Never before… Fuck… how do you talk to a man whose very life you helped unravel?

"Aw, mate. I'm- I'm here for you, okay? I know what you're going through." _But of course, I don't. Never knew, outside of dreams and demonic conspiracies, what it was like to find true love and have a normal family. Everyone who I ever thought would be the one, Kit – Dani – and so on – they left me in the end. And deep down, the idealist in me long dead and burned to ashes, knows that I would've just made for a lousy father and husband if I didn't change the life I led and I never could.  
><em>

He moves his fingers, showing me his eyes. Chas's eyes are starting to redden, and the tears have dried up. There's no more sorrow here. Just one pissed-off Chas who's just lost everything, thanks to me.

"You… you.. FUCKING TWAT!" He roars, taking me by surprise as he hits me with a right hook. He cuts one side of my mouth, and the blood that comes spluttering out burns me as I feel it, taste it on my lips and skin. I never was any good at fighting, relying solely on my luck and mates by my side to get me out of brawls, and I've got neither here. So I just let Chas wail on me with his hands and feet, taking my penance.

He kicks me across the head. Takes out the other side of me mouth. "Everything that's broken in my life, you smashed it. You, John. You're just a frigging addict. You can't stop, can you? And if you ever did anything for me, I've paid and paid and paid for it. Paid until I've fucking bled."

He lefts me by the lapels of my coat.

"So you can bloody well stay away from me. That's all you can do."

He slams me into a wall, and I can feel my front teeth loosening.

"STAY… THE… FUCK… AWAAAY!" He wails as he hits me one final time.

I've had enough, and he's dispensed just as much of his rage he can on me without actually killing me. So Chas staggers off into the bathroom, and he'll probably be getting himself fucking smashed later this evening. All I can do is writhe on the floor, feeling my face, everywhere Chas hit. Then I hear the beeping of Norma's phone.

Casually, like she hadn't just witnessed her cuz turning John Constantine into bloody hamburger, she dials the old bill.

"Hello? Yeah, police. I'd like to report a strange man in my house. He's drunk , and I think he's been in some sort of fight. He's really scaring me."

So this is how our friendship ends, I think before I black out, thankfully before I can hear the sirens arrive. And this time, I don't think Chas is gonna come crawling back to me. And the only time I'll ever see him again soon is if he's coming at me from the opposite side of the street in his cab with his foot down on the pedal with no intents to stop.

And the worse part? I know that he's right. It's all my fucking fault…

* * *

><p>Time became strange for me a while back. I'm in a holding cell at one of the old bill's stations. No one's come to see me. But I've started to see things. Images flash before me like previews at an old black and white movie theater.<p>

_Roberrrr's upside-down crucifix. He thought it was protecting him, but with the way he'd set it up, he was really damning himself._

_Etheridge holding his white invitation, the dumb, fawning schoolboy look he had in his eyes. Genuine admiration. Of a tired old bugger like me. "You've inspired a generation of us. We look up to you." And I told him where to stick that admiration._

_Char's fist as it pummels me, my blood staining his knuckles, and his venomous words ringing in my ears louder and louder at infinitum 'till I was deafened. "You're just a frigging addict. You can't stop, can you?"_

_And they haven't buried her yet, but I can see it. Cheryl's funeral. Poor Gemma, who probably wishes me dead for abandoning her like the selfish coward I am when she needed her Uncle John the most. Leaning on someone for support. Four grim-faced pallbearers lower Cheryl into the earth. And on her coffin is a man on the cross. Only it isn't Christ the Redeemer._

_From where I am, the cross is upside down. A nail and a feather. Damnation seeing my sister off into the afterlife. And the man on the cross is me. _

One of the police finally walks into my cell, ending the flash of images so abruptly I almost leap up and hug him for ending my self-imposed torment.

"Right, my lad. Let's sort you out."

* * *

><p>No one shows up at my court hearing. Just the reporter transcribing the words as he hears them, several stone-faced filth, and a fat judge in a wig who looks like he'd rather be anywhere – even watching grass dry – but here dealing with me.<p>

"Well, Mister Constantine. What an interesting life you've led."

If you consider going to hell and back over and over again and never bothering to become something more than a self-absorbed bastard interesting. Your call, mate.

"No extant charges, but you've been sought in questioning in relation to some very serious crimes. All subsequently resolved. All cases resolved. But still – there's an adage about smoke and fire. And the records of your brush with the American Penal System have been lost."

Oh Christ. Bloody America. Like I needed to be reminded of the prison, Mnemoth, damnation's flame, the towns of Doglick and Highwater, S.W. Manor, and every single other shitty thing that's ever happened to me across the Atlantic.

"As has your psychiatric profile from Ravenscar. You've almost been airbrushed from history."

"Blowtorched." I correct him. "It was a blowtorch. Not an airbrush. An airbrush is a lot finer. I just burn my past every few years. Get rid of the rubbish. You use sulfur and aconite. And a rat's tail."

The Judge frowns.

"What that an attempt at humor, Mister Constantine?"

"No, I don't do humor anymore. Only slapstick."

"Because flippancy will win you no friends in my court."

The Judge looks over a stack of papers.

"Now the charges are disorderly conduct and assault. But that second count is certainly open to question. Would you like to explain how you came by these injuries?"

"My best mate. It was sort of a favor. Tough love kind of thing."

"It's three in the morning, Mister Constantine, and I have fourteen summary cases to rule on. I warn you again, your levity is ill-judged."

I continue to rib the pitiless wanker. Nothing like getting a rise out of dumb and easy targets, innit?

"Yeah, a joke's all about good-timing, isn't it?"

"Are you being intentionally difficult? I'm inclined to let you off with a caution. But it's within my power to fine or imprison you. All I need is a reason."

I don't reply. I just smile at him. I give him a reason. And he looks like he's about to have a bloody coronary, and that only turns my smile into a sneering lunatic's grin.

* * *

><p>"So that's five-hundred pounds for the fine – and another five hundred for the bail." Clarice Sackville says as she scribbles her signature on a check. She's another one of the survivors of the rampage of my demon children, although she lost her right-hand man Albert in the fire. Like Chas, we go back. She was there at the beginning of the Tate Club, and one of the few mages at that cesspit I could consider a friend. I guess I should be surprised that after blowing off their messengers twice, the Tate Club would still pay my bail. But in my line of business, coming to expect anything is a harsh reality of the job. "A thousand, all told. I'll need a receipt, of course."<p>

"Thank you, Mrs. Sackville. Do you want 'im gift-wrapped?"

"Just as he comes is fine, Sergeant. There's no point in gilding the lily."

We talk as we walk towards the exit of the filth station.

"I told Etheridge you'd never agree to come to his party."

"I'm not in a party mood." I coldly tell her. Damn coppers took all me Silk Cuts when they brought me in and my throat's on fire. Not in the mood for anything other than for a place to bunker down and drink the shitty night away, and all the shitty nights after that away as well.

"Darling, I can see exactly what you're in the mood for." She gives me one cigarette. Silk Cut, too. How considerate of you, Clarice.

"I'm really sorry you lost your sister, John. I really am. I've lost Albert twice now. I'm not going to tell you it gets easier."

"Save it for someone who needs it." Like Gemma or Chas…

"Good Lord." She tells me like a mother who's just caught her son stealing a few biscuits from the pantry. "It's not about what you need or what you want. What's the worst thing about grief, John? What's the worst thing of all?"

We exit the station, the old bill paying us no mind as we walk past them. Their expressions are colder, more lifeless than the pavement.

"I don't know, but it's okay, because you're going to tell me."

Clarice shakes her head and she starts to talk.

"It's how quickly life picks up again. How soon you go to fretting about the mortgage, and holding silly grudges." She closes her eyes. "Someone you loved is dead, and it seems as if the world should end. But it doesn't end. It doesn't even change. That's what's unbearable."

I light the cigarette she gave me at last.

"This is going to be one of those 'get on with your life' speeches, isn't it? At your age, do they get easier or harder?"

"John, dear heart, listen to an old friend. You're swimming with good, strong strokes. Straight downwards. There isn't any bottom."

I know. Ever since Newcastle, I've been in hell. A special sort of hell, where nothing even the First of the Fallen could think of could ever compare in its horror. Because I made this hell for myself, and there every now and then there may be a victory or a love that may seem like a light to the way out, when really it's all smoke and mirrors. Clarice, darling, I can't swim out of hell. Because you see, hell isn't some place I just go to pick up smokes and six-packs at. Hell is my life and I'll never be able to change it without burning down all my bridges. All I can do is ride the circle of my life, the snake eating itself, over and over again. In a few weeks, I'll probably be back to messing about with the world of magic again. Cleaning up people's messes for them, until it all comes crashing down and destroying whatever I've managed to rebuild.

"Yeah, well at least it's quiet down there. Thanks for the loan, Clarice. But stuff the advice."

* * *

><p>She meant well, but I blew her off without a single shred of guilt.<p>

But the brooding had cleared a bit. I had some time to think as Clarice and I parted ways. This is the life I made for myself. It's hell, yeah, but I've known that for decades now. No matter how much I've tried to change, no matter what mates I've surrounded myself with, it always comes back to where I am. But can I keep going at it? Is this how it's all going to keep going? Lose the old friends, make some new friends, and then lose them. Destruction and construction, over and over, until the day I finally fall over.

What's the point of trying, really? It's like smoking. I know it's bad for me, it'll kill me one day, etc. but I keep going at it because I'm too damn used to it and I need it to keep going or I start to feel myself unravel.

Sure, I've tried to change. Enough drunken hazes and hours wasted hating myself prove that. But everything always returns to where it was. I can never swear off magic for good. But what if I tried... in a way I never tried before? But could I really bring myself to do it, even if it would finally mean no more dead friends and no more betrayals?

It's tough, but possible.

So I head to The Golden Nugget Casino, where I aim to sort out my money problems, so they no longer can nag at me like a loose tooth. Didn't feel it was that right for Clarice to blow that much quid on someone like me, even if the loss of a thousand is meaningless for someone in her position. And most of all, it left me indebted to her. And if what I'm planning goes right, I won't be in any position to help her or the Tate Club in their matters of mysticism. At the Casino, I find myself a table full of people that I've never met – the best thing that's happened to me lately, one of life's sweetest sights.

Peckham Stubbs told me the three cardinal rules of poker and I've never forgotten them.

Start late.

Build slow.

Smell the hate? Time to go.

And so, I cleared all debts I owed to Clarice. And I made a bit extra, so I still had a few quid to go shopping. For what I'm about to do next.

After taking care of my business needs, I don't call for a cab. I walk the whole way down. I head to the row of lock-ups. I'm the only soul present, my shoes splashing through murky puddles underneath unlit streetlamps, not noticing the stains the water makes on my pants.

I find my lock-up, and I think back to my schoolboy days as I open it up. At school, we had to dissect frogs once. Slit their stomachs open. Pin back the flaps and draw what we saw inside. This is a bit like that, my lock-up. It's my life dissected. My memories laid out and labeled. There are a few gaps here and there when the place was broken into last month, but still, decades and bloody decades of it are still intact.

Without further ado, ladies and gents – the John Constantine museum.

I wander my hands through the shelves and drawers. Looking at and feeling everything. Everything here's got a memory attached to it, and I remember every one of them clearly. Most of the time, it's something I should've tried to forget.

This Bible made of foreskin? It had been a trade with my friend Rick the Vic in my plan to engineer the Archangel Gabriel's fall. One of the few godbotherers I became genuine friends with. He had given to me in exchange for a jar of angel sperm. You see, while Rick may have been an honest believer, he still had a huge hard-on for acts of sacrilege. His hooker girlfriend was just the tip of his iceberg. He'd been eating from the jar with her when the First of the Fallen had come storming into his church, and like that dumb bugger Tony, forgot that suicide seals the ticket to hell in a moment of desperate, stupid improvisation. And you know what the saddest thing about it is? All his sacrilege would've probably sent him to hell anyways. It's like I said once, some people are just doomed from the day they start running. But it doesn't make watching them die or sending them to die yourself any easier.

I set the Bible down and then I find it. The revolver. Guns were never my thing, and I don't know why I didn't just toss it away in the same field where I fired it for the first and last times. In my hands now, it feels as unnatural and wrong as it did the day Chas arranged for someone to get me it after a fit of desperation from me. You see, I'd found myself hunted by a serial killer called the Family Man. He was the worst kind of evil, worse than demons and devils. Pure, unfiltered human evil hiding behind a gentlemanly façade. Evil that's in every one of us. I managed to best him, in the end. But there are no clean getaways in my line of work. He'd roughed up Chas, and killed… killed me Dad.

Christ… Dad. We never did see eye to eye, growing up. I made his life hell. I can see Dad, the struggling, working-class man trying to raise me, the unruly bastard who'd strangled his perfect brother in the womb, all by himself – getting weaker and lonelier by the day. And as a final insult, external events of his son's life, the son who never bothered to visit or talk to him, walks in through the front door and stabs him in the back.

Knowing that Dad's burning in hell, having seen and talked with him there myself, doesn't make things any better.

As for the Family Man, he nearly killed me as well. But I killed him first. But the act of killing was nothing like a Leone Western or Bond film. When I killed the Family Man, I didn't calmly stroll up to him and plant three .357 rounds in his head before cracking a joke at his deceased expense and walking off, knowing that all would be well with the world. That would've been the Hollywood version, with ugly old and normal me replaced by some dark-haired ponce.

I remember it clearly. His fingers prying mine into positon, against the revolver's trigger. I'd shot him once already, swearing that I could kill him, but when I felt the weight of the revolver, the force of its recoil as I shot – I knew that even with my life at stake, I couldn't do it. So he did me a favor. And forever I'd be haunted by a lack of closure. Knowing that whatever victims he would've killed were only hypothetical, but him, he was real. He was evil incarnate, but he had been a real living breathing thing only now because of me he was dead and gone forever. There's no word I can come up with, that can I describe what it's like, to kill another man. But I know what it sounds like. The banging of the revolver in my hands as it ends a life, its force in my hands like a bloody cannon, echoing forever and forever across the field underneath a spotless sky where his body was left to be licked by the grazing cows and rot until it was found.

I toss the revolver aside, listening to it clatter on the floor of my lock-up. There's no need to put it back in its place, no, not after what I'm planning to do.

I then rest my hand on the screen of a computer monitor. The bulky, heavy old kind. Never really did understand machinery. Never was proficient enough to use them well. But my old mate Ritchie Simpson, one of the crew who'd been with me at Newcastle, he breathed technology just as well as he did magic. If he could see how far we've come in that field, he'd be crying in absolute ecstasy. But he can't, can he? _No, Constantine. You got his body burned up because you had him dig too deep into your own dirty business for you, didn't even bother telling him what had happened before disconnecting him, and when it turned out he was alive you used him as a pawn to swindle Nergal_. Got him turned into a demon, got him dragged away by Agony and Ecstasy, where only hell knows what's become of him.

I don't know where it comes from. This impulse to set everything by. To save it up. As if the past doesn't die until you give in and fucking bury it.

Or as if you can read your own past like runes. Draw a map of yourself, based on what you've loved and feared and hated and lived with and picked up and put down.

But the past is another country. And there's fucking razor wire along the border, and machine gun nests every fifty yards.

No, I think as I reach into my bag and examine the contents of my shopping spree. I think what we need here is something a little more radical. Something's that going to last. Like say, as I reach in and remove the gallon of gasoline, a dose of liquid Alzheimer's.

As I douse everything, from the skulls to the books, in gas, I think about Chas. He's as thick in a brick in a lot of ways. But in this case, he's right. All this, the relics of my past around me and all the magic, is an addiction.

Hearing the gasoline swashing in its can, knowing that emptiness dawns, I give it a whirl. Try to coat as much as I can with the remaining fluid. I then leave the empty can in the lock-up, and I walk on outside. I talk one last look at my past. My history. Who I am… was.

Always time for another fag. I light the Silk Cut, thinking about how once my addiction to these nearly killed me when they led to cancer and yet even after I found it out, I didn't bother to quit. _You know why? When you set out to kick a bad, dangerous habit – you can't help yourself, can you? You indulge it first._ I blow out a swirling, ash-like stream of smoke, letting it trail and fan out into nothingness. That's why I can't just quit by saying so. This addiction, it needs something like an act of God to ever give me a chance in hell of kicking it. _You take one last, long drag for old times' sake. Thinking I love this. _I turn my shoulder and toss the cigarette, still burning, over it.

And the lock-up and everything in it goes up in flames.

_I really loved this. _

* * *

><p>I'm watching my life burn before my very eyes as I smoke another fag. I think about how once I chose to be magic's consort willingly. The wonder it once presented to my eager, young eyes. The passion with which I used it, and combined with the gift the day I discovered the day Kenny Nelson lost his legs, I pulled off all my greatest cons. But I never understood them before it was too late, and the shining silver grew tarnished. My life worn old before its time, and me left to wander a lonesome road that will never end. You know what the ultimate price of magic and the gift are? Take a seat next to me and watch with me.<p>

But who'd want to sit with me? Never know who I pissed off who'd tear your head off just because he saw you wish me, thinking that you mattered and your passing would hurt me. But that's all over now. If what I'm about to do after tonight goes to plan. Cheryl and everyone I lost this time, they were the final crack in the thin ice.

Almost on cue, I hear a voice I hadn't expected to hear. Bloody Map. I had assumed he'd died along with everyone else, but looks like that's another one who did make it out. He's not here, in person. Probably diddling about in the London Underground per usual.

"John Constantine." His projection addresses me. He looks at the fire, almost confused by what I've just done.

"Hello, Map. Just sorting out a few odds and ends. You going to the Amateur Magicians' Cosmic Boogie Ball, then?"

"The Tate Club? Not my scene. Clarice Sackville is concerned about you. She thinks you might be about to do something – reckless."

Oh Clarice… oh Angie, you poor loves… if only you could see what I'm cooking up in my head right now.

"I told her I wasn't in a party mood. But I changed my mind. If you see her, say I'll be there and I'll make the speech."

It's almost a pleasure, to watch my past burn like this. But I find myself incapable of feeling anything anymore other than sinking emptiness and weight of everything collapsing upon me.

"She can tell Etheridge I'll pull out all the stops. They'll love it to bits."

"Will they?" Map asks skeptically. Smart little bastard, you are, Map.

"Between you and me? No."

Oh, they're going to hate me for it. I'll probably have every wannabe mage in London whose dreams I'm going to shatter begging for me head on a fucking platter. But I know full well the consequences of what I'm going to do. It doesn't matter what happens to me, or what they'll say and think. After this, I'm out of the picture. That Constantine, the smug bastard who disappeared in and out of the shadows, he's burning somewhere there in the fire. Sod what he'd think about this. What happens to them is what matters.

"But they'll remember it."


	4. Chapter 4

**Adapted from Hellblazer #215 - R.S.V.P. Part Two**

* * *

><p>Today's the night of the Tate Club's party. There are still a few matters of business I have to take care of first. I'm at the bus stop, waiting for me double-decker to arrive as I finish puffing on my cigarette. In front of me, after the dirty water rushing into the gutter, is the word stop painted on the road in big white letters. Bit of a futile message, innit?<p>

I already burned my past at the lock-up. The only thing I haven't bothered parting with is my old, wrinkled piss-stained trenchcoat. The only option now is to keep trudging forward and continue changing things forever. There's no turning back for me, not anymore. Everything, all the guilt and damnation I've built up over the years, has finally exceeded far beyond the critical point.

Perhaps you've been wondering, why a sod like me who's been thrown about and broken as many times as I hasn't done the obvious thing and just did away with myself. You see, when you're me, you've come to close to dying or hell - even died enough times to really take your time to think about death, the way the paranoids or the people who just get it never do.

Do you want a bit of advice, while I'm still around to give it?

Listen up. There's no such thing as the end of the line. Not really.

You just reach a place. A certain place's where nothing's moving anymore.

Things might get moving again on the far side, but you can't imagine yourself there. You think: that's too far to jump. And people are still talking, and somehow none of it reaches you. It's just noise now. Just patterns. Away off in the background.

You could kill yourself, but you'd still be you. Just a dead you, with fewer options and less to say for yourself. Seems a bit futile, really.

Bit of an empty gesture.

At that moment, my bus finally arrives. A quick stop, and with the noise of an engine coming to life, it's off. At the bench, in front of the stop in the road, no one sits. And only the faint smell of a burnt cigarette indicates that anyone ever was there to begin with.

* * *

><p><em>At the Tate Club, Etheridge and an assistant are making the final decorative touches. They play a guessing game to pass the mundaneness, as Etheridge lays down triangularly-arrange napkins and the assistant constructs an elaborately prepared set-piece of stacked wine-glasses that he's painstakingly worked on for hours to get perfect. <em>

"_I'm only a beer teetotaler, not a champagne teetotaler."_

"_Oscar Wilde." Etheridge guesses. He read it from a site on the Internet which attributed the quote to Mr. Wilde. No way the Internet could lie, right? _

_The assistant chuckles. "Wrong. Bernard Shaw. One to me. What else is on your little list, Etheridge?"_

"_Balloons."_

"_Blown up."_

"_String quartet."_

"_Booked and briefed."_

"_Speaker."_

"_Ah. Good news there. The black man – Map Ondaatje –says Constantine will be coming after all. He promises to be both hermetic and riotous."_

_Etheridge is surprised by this. But it's a good surprise. Looks like he'll be getting his way after all. This is better than a year of never-ending Christmases. _

"_But he was so emphatic. He swore at me!" _

"_Yes. I'm sure. Born north of Watford, wasn't he? All the breeding of a two-penny fart. But I have to admit, he does have a certain style all his own." _

* * *

><p>My first stop is a local greenhouse. Nobody's here but me. I wander alone, surrounded by nothing but the green. In other words, the perfect place to contact who I'm looking for.<p>

Guilt over not staying for Cheryl's burial is catching up to me. Aside from the Tate Club party, today's the day they put her into the ground. And I won't be able to make it back to Liverpool in time to attend. But I suppose I'll have to compromise and settle for the next best thing. If he's willing to cooperate, which I find myself highly doubtin'.

I go through the greenhouse until I stop at a large gingko tree. Slowly, I light myself another cigarette and look at it, waiting a bit. If anybody was watching, they'd think I was crazy, talking to a tree like this. But I know things. I've seen things.

"I'm not going to ask if this thing is on. I mean, you're wired up to everything, right? Got your ear to the ground. Ha bloody ha."

And the bright green color of the gingko darkens into a shadier hue of green. A divide forms and opens up into a mouth. And two searing-red eyes open. Whoever thought I was crazy would've probably gone crazy by now if they saw this, from pissing themselves in fright. Ladies and gents, it's the bloody Swamp Thing.

"I need a favor." I tell him.

Haven't seen the Swamp Thing since the debacle with the Shadow Dog and the Beast. Were we ever mates, me and the not-so-jolly green giant? He must hate my guts, after all I put him through. Just another toy for me to mess around with, just like everyone else I broke when I had no use for them anymore. My heart almost clenches but I haven't felt any strong emotions lately and I can tell he's not too pleased for us to be reunited so quickly.

"You again…"

I nod. I wouldn't be too surprised if he just fucks off right now at the mere sight of me but he continues.

"I saw you… in a dream."

"A bloody nightmare, I hope. Listen, they're burying my sister today."

"Your… sister… is dead."

Something about the way he says that sentence just doesn't rub me the right way.

"No, it's a fucking practical joke." I coldly tell him before taking the cigarette out of my mouth. "I thought you could drop a couple of flowers on her grave for me. You know, discreetly. If you're passing that way."

I get ready to leave, but I realize that this may be the last the two of us – the unlikely couple we are – see each other for a while. So why not just toss him a bit of the 'ol Constantine wit for 'ol times sake before it all really went to hell? Something to remember me by.

"That's a female gingko, by the way. You're cross-dressing, you pervy old bastard."

I swear the green bloke actually is amused by this disturbing revelation. Christ, can a tree grin?

I don't know why I bothered really. After the Invunche, that whole business with impregnating Abby, and the shenanigans with the Beast, I don't see how he'd ever want to do anything for me again after all the misery and confusion helping me in the past has brought him. If he doesn't want to be a friend of mine, doesn't want to grow a few small roses on Cheryl's grave, it's all perfectly understandable.

But still, doesn't stop me from calling him a wanker in my head. Wanker.

* * *

><p>I'm playing in traffic. I feel just about ready now, with me in the right mood of black-bile spitting, nihilistic fucked-offness. But maybe I'm flattering myself. Only one way to find out, I suppose, before I head down to the Tate Club.<p>

I stand in the traffic lane, not moving one bit. The truck dawns on me and the driver sees me in time to hit the gas and begin screeching down. In a few seconds, I'll either be highway pizza or dealing with a red-faced idiot screaming obscenities at me for being the arse I am.

It stops just a sliver's worth away from the cigarette in my mouth.

"You fucking irresponsible fucking lunatic!" The driver's shouting at me. Looks like it's Choice B I'll be filling out on me forms, then. Don't hear the rest of what he slings at me. It's just noise.

Pathetic, the way he waves around his middle finger like that without trying to sort me out. But he's afraid. After all, what sort of crazy bastard just stands and waits in traffic to be hit like that? The dangerous sort, the type you don't want to fuck around with.

Yeah, I decide. I'm good. Better leave it at that for now. Don't want my luck to peak too early, as I turn and walk away.

* * *

><p><em>Cheryl Masters<em>

_Beloved Wife and Mother_

_1946 – 2005_

_Those are the words on Cheryl's gravestone. Extended family from all over England have gathered here today in memory of Cheryl. The priest orates as they ready to lower her into the Earth and fill the grave up. _

"_She was our sister. And she left us all too soon. But we know in our hearts that God had a reason for calling her home." Gemma rolls her eyes at this. If only the Priest could see where she was, courtesy of Dad and Uncle John. "And we take comfort from the thought that she rests now in His house. Her earthly work done."_

_Gemma sighs as she and Angie Spatchcock hang back, away from the main mass of mourners. How could her Uncle John have just run out on her like that? And without a word good-bye, too. But this wasn't his style, she knew. He had his own way of dealing with grief, but did he have to be so dark about it? _

_But maybe it was a sign. She wasn't someone who had to be rescued by Uncle John anymore from Satanic kidnappers or Granddad's ghost, wasn't someone who could be persuaded to just turn back and not pursue her dreams. Not anymore. _

"_She'd be laughing in his face if she could hear this."_

"_I know, Gemma. So why are you going along with this?"_

_Gemma looks down. Dad had loved her and Mum. Both of them so very much. But she had to admit her father had made plenty of mistakes, some of which she couldn't forgive him for, just yet._

"_Because the alternative was to let Dad's loony cult bury both of them together. Even a co-op funeral's better than that." _

_They wait for the mass to split before heading over to Cheryl's grave. _

"_You can sleep over at the café, if you want."_

"_I'm fine, Angie. I want to be where she was. And anyway, the smell of fried food is liable to make me…"_

_Gemma doesn't finish her sentence. Her attention is cut off by a startling new development. She's at a loss of words as before her eyes, a red rose sprouts from her mother's grave. And flowers keep sprouting up and up until Cheryl's grave has become a flower patch that would put professional gardeners to shame. _

_Did her Uncle John have something to do with this? _

_Maybe he wasn't such a heartless bastard after all._

* * *

><p>I've been here for a while, but they don't know it yet. I'm at the Tate Club after darkness has fallen, when the guests for the evening start to arrive in droves.<p>

"Good evening, Clarice." A servant addresses Clarice as he takes her heavy furs off of her while Etheridge is greeting her. She's in a blood-red dress and despite her age, she wears it well. "Glad you could make it."

"I was here at the Founding, dear heart. I couldn't miss the bicentennial. And ooh, careful with the fox fur. It bites."

Ah, reincarnated furs. Never did learn how to pull that one off. Would've made for a few nice scares at Christmas for Tony.

"I rather thought that John Constantine might be your escort for the evening." Etheridge tells her as his assistant takes her by the arm.

"John? Death is his maiden these days, Mister Etheridge. I almost qualify, but not quite."

As Clarice goes off, Etheridge impatiently turns to his assistant.

"Then where the bloody hell is he?"

"He'll be here. Otherwise his name will be mud." Almost like you can read the future mate, but not quite. "Get everyone sitting down and tell the kitchen we're ready."

A wide spectrum of magicians takes a seat at the long table. Men, women, the old, the young. But pitifully, they're all united by a single, pathetic common weaving thread. It's nothing but a game to them. A way to pass the hours, to have a laugh at whatever gets caught in the web they weave. The vanity, the casualness with which they all discuss their business deals shows. How they show no concern about the effects their playing with fire can harm those they care about. Even to a jaded cynical bastard like me, it's bloody disgusting. These wankers are what I could've become, a thought that sends a rare shiver down my spine.

I'm in no mood to party. And this only cements my feelings, taking away any guilt I might've had over what I'm about to do them.

Etheridge's assistant taps three times on a glass of blood-red wine. Or is it wine?

"Ladies and gentlemen and entities undecided! If I could have your attention for a moment… the er, best laid plans of man and superman gang Alf Atley, as the poet says. And I'm sorry to say that our guest for the evening, renowned occultist John Constantine…"

"…has an empty glass." I say, making my presence known at last. There's a hushed whisper weaving its way through the guests. "But I'm sure that's just an oversight. Your cellars stretch all the way to Whitehall, don't they? I'll have a pint of Moet Et Chandon with a cherry in it."

He nervously claps. Nobody else in the audience does.

"Well, er, yes. Please welcome John Constantine. A man who needs no introduction from me."

He whispers into my ear as I take my stand.

"You know the drill here, old horse. Couple of jokes. Inspirational message. Then you propose a toast to the Club, and I answer on behalf of the Committee. Got that?"

"Toast the Club? Yeah. Got it."

I look over every one of them once, gauging them. And I begin my speech. All eyes are on me now. Now is the critical hour, and they're going to bloody well remember this.

"So magic. What's it all about then?"

No answer.

"I wonder what you were after when you got into the game. It's usually something. Something specific you think is worth taking risks for. Money. Sex. Power. Enlightenment. Thinner thighs in thirty days." There are some murmurs of agreement, maybe a small chuckle, at this. "It's a long time ago for most of you. Maybe you don't remember. Fuck, maybe you don't even want to."

A bottle of champagne is being poured.

"But I'll tell you something for free. At rock bottom, it's always about the same thing. It's always about entropy. The universe is winding down. Things fall apart. The moving finger writes, and what it writes is 'tough shit.' You can't get something for nothing."

Clarice is frowning. Clever girl. I think she's already beginning to pick up on my true intentions, although none of her dumb compatriots are half as perceptive.

I'm grinning now.

"Like God said to Adam when he kicked him out of the Garden, 'Now you've got to work for a living.' If there was ever a free lunch, it ended right there. So we push and we pull and we sweat. Putting in a shitload of energy to get a little back." There's a few more chuckles, hushed discussions amongst the audience. They're still smiling, and it hasn't dawned on any of them yet. "Third law of thermodynamics, right?"

Someone holds a platter before me with the glass of champagne. I take it.

"The one we all love to hate, right. Cheers."

I raise the glass.

"But with magic, it's different. Or could be. Case in point: this fine old Ploink. How did it get here? Grapes had to ripen. Peasants had to toil. Some plucky kid in Mark and Sparks had to zip along the aisles with his pricing gun. Lots of effort. Lots of energy."

I put the glass to my mouth and drink the whole damn thing. I must make these people uncomfortable, with how out of place I am, here with me chugging me champagne in me dirty 'ol trenchcoat while they contemplatively and dignifiedly sip theirs in their best evening dress worn only on special occasions like this. Good. I hope I'm giving all you bastards some bad vibes.

"And once it's gone, it's gone. When things fall apart…" I toss the glass back, barely missing the intricate mountain of glasses behind me. What a tragedy it would've been for the tosser who put it together, if my aim had been a little less drunk, eh? "…they do not put themselves back together."

I help myself to another smoke. I'm going through these quicker than I usually did in the past, nowadays.

"He's drunk." I hear the worried whine of Etheridge.

His assistance, the conceited mustached-cunt, only chuckles. "Thank God. I doubt he'd been this funny sober."

I find myself looking at the bottle.

"But if you ask a demon to bring you some wine, or jiffy some up with a spell, well – you're cheating the taxman, aren't you? It comes for free. No grapes. No peasants. No entropy."

I clutch the bottle, lifting it up. "So here we all are, then. Chasing the earthly paradise. Trying to sneak back into Eden through the backdoor, because work is for the mug punters."

And like a curtain being parted, the horror of what's in the box revealed, I hit them with my honest thoughts full force.

"You stupid arrogant little shits. We're not playing with fire here. We're playing with napalm. There's a war on, and we're whoring with the enemy for pennies. Innocent people die when we fuck up. And we fuck up all the time."

To everyone I cared about who died because a plan of mine went wrong, or because someone wanted to get at me through you, or because I wanted the cheap and easy way out and decided you were expendable enough – this is for you.

Etheridge and his assistant both look at each other like they've just messed themselves.

When I thought the Shadow Dog was the big bad I had to hunt, I made a little trip around the globe with Angie. One of the places we stopped was Iran. There, Eden lays sleeping, with its angel and the flaming sword still guarding it.

"Oh, don't get me wrong. Eden's a nice place. I was there a few months back. Left a piece of myself buried in the ground there, for reasons I won't go into." I then pluck a strand of hair from my head and make my way forward.

Etheridge and company have started to realize what I've got planned, and they're moving to restrain me as I inch towards the candles on the table. But they're too bloody late. Because I already walked off with a smile and wave and every one of them hasn't realized they're bleeding until now.

"So I can tell you, God hates our kind most especially. The cheats. The hellblazers. The collaborators. Look…" I drop my hair into the candlefire, and the flames begin to blacken. "…this is what Heaven has to say to the likes of us."

Massive mists of black smoke explode from the extinguished candles, and even I have to stand back agape and horrified as out of the giant pillars of smoke something materializes. A body that would put professional bodybuilders to shame. Long, flowing locks of bright blonde hair. The flapping of great, beating wings. And in his hand, the angel holds a flaming sword. And with one slash of the sword, the angel shatters the mountain of drinking glasses.

I light a cigarette as the shards fly past me. And the screaming starts.

He shows them, each and every one of them, how they're going to die. Damnation in a shard of broken glasses. Images of every fucked up way to go you can imagine. Maggots eating you alive. Skin being pried off with hooks. Incinerate. Eyes pounded out by nails. Face ripped off by the undead, face burned off by acid. And most frightening of all to them, is that many of the deaths, if you look closely, take place in the Tate Club itself. I once wondered, when I sacrificed Gary Lester, how long it could take a man to stop screaming. Now I find out how long it takes for an entire room of tight-arsed magic snobs to do it.

As the shards settles, and the fires down, the angel and I exchange a mutual glance.

"That'll do, Shep. That'll do."

And with that, he's gone. Leaving behind just me and the ruins of lives of the Tate Club's magicians.

"Oh John… what have you done?" Looks like everyone's run off but Clarice.

"I don't know, Clarice. What?" I coldly tell her as I rub my cigarette out amongst the wreckage. "Burst a few balloons? Ruined a crap party?"

Clarice's voice is angry. But despite my expectations, she's not angry. More fearful. Like a mother who nearly lost her son to his own foolish, reckless experiment.

"They'll never forgive you. As long as you live, no magician in the world will ever lift a finger to help you again." She says while she grasps a bleeding cut in her arm, and I almost feel sorry that I showed Clarice her death as well. But I'm beyond all feeling now.

Ah, seems like a good time for another fag. I must've gone through a million Silk Cuts by now, but the taste never gets old. And right now, the trusty old smoke is all I've got to depend upon with all me mates dead or wishin' me dead and all my ties severed by my hand.

"London isn't the world, Clarice. It just thinks it is. You people need to fucking get over yourselves. I like to think I've helped."

"You showed them their deaths! You showed them how small they are!"

"Yeah. Total perspective vortex. That's me. They should give me a vote of fucking thanks. After all, there's no point in kidding yourself, is there?" I say as I take one last look at Clarice, smoking cig in me mouth. "That way madness lies."

* * *

><p>I go looking for the back door. There's probably a lynch mob out front, so it seems like the safest option. But it isn't.<p>

Jesus Christ. They're all here.

The whole Sick Crew. Straff and his mum. Emma. Alba. Brendan, Rick the Vic, Header, Dez, and Nigel. Ray Monde. Jerry O'Flynn. Una. Astra. Dad. Even Mange, Davy the Rentboy, Lucky Fermin, and everyone else who bit it on account of association with me has decided to join the party. From Nineteen Seventy-Eight to Two-thousand and Five, here's the final exhibit of the John Constantine museum, the one open only after dark. Twenty-seven years in the makin', here's to every bloody one of them, the sodding ghosts.

From heaven, from hell, and from who-knows-where, they come. All my best mates, all my old loves, and everyone else significant who died that left me haunted. Just like old times, eh? Because the old times were never less than fucking terrifying, I think, as I toss my cigarette over my shoulder. One final guilt trip... but a little too late for that, innit?

I don't know if they're an honor guard or a jury. Probably both. And I notice a new face amongst the ghosts. Cheryl… the latest but last of the ghosts, now that I've given up the game. But can I really believe that, no matter how hard I try to put these words in my mouth?

My sister and I glance at each other as I pass through the rest of the ghosts. There's a sad, guilty look in her eyes as they lock with mine. She looks like she has something she wishes to desperately tell me, like she's sorry she chose damnation with her beloved husband over the salvation I could've won for her. But she doesn't say a thing. None of the bloody ghosts do. And when they do this, it's worse than when they try to give me a fucking intervention.

A brief flicker of sadness passes through me, a final chorus of a long-played song finally winding down before it's never heard again. For a second, O'm tempted. To reach out and touch Cheryl, hold her by the shoulders and then hold her to me so tight that not even hell itself could snatch her from me, hold her so tightly that I could pretend that the darkness brewing around me doesn't seem so bad, and tell her that it's alright. That I forgive her, that I'm ready to move on. Maybe even cry a bit without anyone seeing me and losing the illusion of the Constantine mask I've worn so well, like the time I saw Cheryl when I was fearful of the cancer brewing in me throat. But it isn't that easy, is it? And right now, I'm too much of a worn-down bastard, devoid of any feeling now, to even bother saying something. All I can do is look a slight bit pissed as she continues to gaze deep into my blackening eyes.

Sorry, sis. But as Dad knew, knew when he saw me and raised me, he knew too well I was the bad apple of the bunch. Shouldn't even have been born, in a perfect world. But this isn't a little golden boy's perfect world, is it?

In my sickly, fallen world there is no closure at the end of the day. No clear-cut answers or victories to be handed to me, no good-byes or apologies or anything really I can spew from me mouth that'll stick, no cavalry of underwear models and bodybuilders rushin' in in their bright spandex to save the day. When I fall, there's hardly a soddin' lesson learned. Every torturous journey's end is simply the beginning of another one. All I can do in this world is to find some way to try and get by, see how much more I take before it finally all cracks up. Pretend that there's a light at the tunnel, though this entire world's in the dark. Always has been. And when I think I've found something to latch onto, I'll try and crawl from the wreckage of me past life. And I walk away from it, trudge through the endless oil slick before the fire I made catches up to me.

So I walk down the avenue they've left between them as the ghosts part for me like the Red Sea. Past Frank, Ben, Judith. Looking them all in the eye, one at a time. Because you can't smack a roomful of people in the face with their own mortality and expect to hide under the bedclothes when death comes calling. And when I'm done, I walk past them all. It's the best I can do. I may have burned all traces of my history investigating the occult, severed all connections to London's magic scene, and pissed off all me surviving mates - but with any sort of rotten luck I've clung onto, the bloody ghosts are bound to keep haunting me 'till the end of time.

I stroll away from the Tate Club, walking alone in the dark. I don't bother turning me head back to see if anyone's bothered to follow me, whether they be corporeal or not. Sod it, I'm all past that. I never even needed the occult to con dumb bleeders in the first place.

I linger by at a lamppost. Tomorrow's going to be a big day. The first day of my new life. A life without magic. Without connections and favors. Without… family and mates. On my own once more, a destiny to shape as I see fit. Wonder how long it'll be before I fuck everything up again, and find myself drawn back into this shitty world I tried so hard to escape this week. Everywhere is pitch-black but here, the sole light shining in the darkness. Wonder how long it'll hold out against the dark.

Christ, I need a fucking drink. I reach for a fag, but I realize I'm out. But just this once, I don't mind.

My last thoughts, before being swept away by a tide of nihilistic nothingness caught in the middle, are of everything I've just left behind and resolutely that this time there is no turning back. I've changed everything forever.

I feel a few light taps on my head, dampening my hair where they land, and something then drips from my hair and falls into my eyes blinding me for a short spell before I blink them clear. I look up.

It's coming down to rain, with perfect timing.

The first drops run down from my face, so that from a distance you could mistake them for tears.

Don't you believe it, mate.

Don't you fucking believe it.


End file.
